The background description provided herein is for the purpose of generally presenting the context of the disclosure. Work of the presently named inventor, to the extent the work is described in this background section, as well as aspects of the description that may not otherwise qualify as prior art at the time of filing, are neither expressly nor impliedly admitted as prior art against the present disclosure.
Wireless discovery is the process by which Wi-Fi enabled mobile devices such as cell phones, laptops, tablets and the like (known collectively as “stations”) locate and connect with wireless networks and, ultimately, each other. Usually, this entails a wireless device connecting to a wireless access point (AP) such as a router. Increasingly, wireless discovery is also being used to directly connect two or more wireless devices without an intervening access point, in so-called peer-to-peer, P2P or ad-hoc network communication. Wireless discovery may also refer to the process of service re-discovery by one or more devices already connected to the wireless network. In this third scenario, a change in device priority, such as the need to print a document, may drive a wireless device on the network to seek a new connection with a different wireless device (e.g., a print server) also on the network. In any of these circumstances, when a wireless device seeks a new connection, the wireless device may first probe the network and listen for a response to the probe, or the wireless device may listen for a beacon signal to respond to.
Legacy wireless discovery methodology has been to simply keep each wireless device in a state of almost constant discovery (e.g., listening or probing). This approach results in the discovery of new wireless devices almost instantly, but does so at the cost of increased power consumption and overall efficiency. Even worse, the infrastructure makes no restrictions or provisions on when or how many queries/responses may be dispatched, with the result that network congestion may develop very rapidly. This problem is exacerbated in especially crowded areas such as sports/entertainment arenas and urban environments, where a device seeking a new connection may illicit a response from any other wireless device within range, resulting in literally thousands of replies.